Mid Republican Roman - Italian Allies Shield Patterns

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:08 am

OK, I'm working on painting up my Italian allies for my Mid Republican Roman starter army. I've been looking at Peter Conolly's Greece and Rome at War which is probably the best reference I have for this period, and I'm trying to figure out what patterns to use on the shields for the Italian allies. From what I can determine a Macedonian style star wouldn't be a bad guess, but before I committed some sort of faux-pas I thought I'd ask for suggestions here.

Skullzgrinda · Post by **Skullzgrinda** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:14 am

Many of the Italian peoples used a variety of stars. Also a funky 'daisy' sort of pattern.

Best sources are art history books which focus on painted pottery. The clay slips were very limited for color, so may not depict a full range there, but they do display a lot of patterns, some crude, some quite elaborate and sophisticated.

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:40 pm

Thank you. This supports what I discovered in the Conolly book. I'll go with it. I think I'm going to be conservative and paint the stars in darker colors (black, dark red, etc.) directly on the bronze shield. We'll see how I like it.

Skullzgrinda · Post by **Skullzgrinda** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:49 pm

Don't forget a slightly softened off-white. It really punches up the darker colors with the value contrast. Also, some of the hoplon patterns looked as if the shield background was a solid color, using unpainted bronze to depict the images or patterns.

A rich, earthy red with black, off-white and bronze will be quite sufficient color variation, and it looks very rich. I sort of cringe from the color assortments that look like ads for Florida vacations.

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 4:23 pm

Skullzgrinda wrote:A rich, earthy red with black, off-white and bronze will be quite sufficient color variation, and it looks very rich. I sort of cringe from the color assortments that look like ads for Florida vacations.

As do I. I try to save the bright colors for special units (like lavender for companions) or those units specifically calling for them (like Gauls).

Strategos69 · Post by **Strategos69** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:52 pm

I guess you are referring to Italian infantry armed in the Greek hoplite fashion. Here you have some Greek shield patterns which depict what you just said:

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson ... s350-.html
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson ... 0-350.html

Here you have another depictions of other Italian allies, in this case Samnites:

These could be Campanian or Etruscan:

If you don't want to have to paint the shields by yourself, take a look at this site:
http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/cata ... fab2b5177f

More shield patterns:

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:49 pm

Thank you again!

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 4:42 pm

How did I do? More images on my blog (see signature)

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:09 pm

They look awesome, well done

Skullzgrinda · Post by **Skullzgrinda** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 6:36 pm

Outstanding!

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 6:50 pm

Thanks guys!

Strategos69 · Post by **Strategos69** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:47 pm

Yes, wonderful results! I can see that you got some inspiration

By the way, one of the miniatures you used (the one advancing) usually came with the Oscan Infantry pack from Old Glory. Is the other miniature also from Old Glory? Which pack?

Thanks in advance and keep posting!

Mehrunes · Post by **Mehrunes** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:52 pm

I really hope these are not copied versions of the above posted LBM transfer picture. Because they are rather blurry, it looks a little bit like that.
It would be a shame to exploit the fact that Stephen has some decent pictures of his work on his website so that customers can watch what they buy.
The transfers itself can be purchased for a very fair amount of money, so please support Stephen if you like to use his work.

Strategos69 · Post by **Strategos69** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:56 pm

Mehrunes wrote:I really hope these are not copied versions of the above posted LBM transfer picture. Because they are rather blurry, it looks a little bit like that.
It would be a shame to exploit the fact that Stephen has some decent pictures of his work on his website so that customers can watch what they buy.
The transfers itself can be purchased for a very fair amount of money, so please support Stephen if you like to use his work.

I suggested him to buy them. I have done so at least. With these transfers you save a lot of time painting details that would be, otherwise, almost impossible to do.

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:01 am

Strategos69 wrote:By the way, one of the miniatures you used (the one advancing) usually came with the Oscan Infantry pack from Old Glory. Is the other miniature also from Old Glory? Which pack?

These two poses come from this OG battle group pack: http://oldglory15s.com/catalog/product_ ... ts_id=4047

Strategos69 · Post by **Strategos69** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 10:50 am

pease1 wrote:
Strategos69 wrote:By the way, one of the miniatures you used (the one advancing) usually came with the Oscan Infantry pack from Old Glory. Is the other miniature also from Old Glory? Which pack?
These two poses come from this OG battle group pack: http://oldglory15s.com/catalog/product_ ... ts_id=4047

Thank you! I will try to get some of that second pose

pease1 · Post by **pease1** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:24 pm

Strategos69 wrote:Thank you! I will try to get some of that second pose

I tried to find which individual pack they're offered in, but it doesn't look like they're in any of the Italian packs. Shame, If I knew you wanted some I would have traded for some other similar poses, we both could have benefited.